The management and disposal of solid waste material generated by medical institutions and treatment facilities has become increasingly problematic in recent years. A significant portion of this solid waste material contains infectious micro-organisms and other hazardous biological materials which require special handling and disposal techniques.
In the past, the simplest solution to the problem of disposal of bio-hazardous wastes has been to incinerate these wastes and thereby destroy both the wastes and the contaminating micro-organisms. Incinerators installed for this purpose are commonly found in medical institutions.
In recent years, several new factors have made the incineration of bio-hazardous waste an undesirable option. The bio-hazardous wastes are not very combustible, due to their high water content and their high content of quasi-combustible materials such as plastics, artificial fibers, and the like. As a result, complete incineration of bio-hazardous materials requires a substantial fuel input to achieve temperatures sufficient to render total the combustion of the wastes. The steep increases in fuel costs in recent years have greatly increased the operating cost of an incinerator. These costs are likely to increase significantly in the near future.
Another development in recent years is the increased concern over air quality, and the new laws and regulations governing the discharge of pollutants into the air. Many existing incinerators cannot meet the current pollution emission standards, and must be retro-fitted with scrubbers to remove pollutants from the stack gases of the incinerator. Scrubber devices and retro-fitting of existing installations can be an extremely expensive undertaking. Further increases in the stringency of the pollution emission standards may have the practical effect of outlawing incinerators, even when they are equipped with scrubber units.
Furthermore, an incinerator equipped with a stack gas scrubber is a sophisticated mechanism which requires a licensed operator or engineer to be in attendance on a continuing basis. Thus, modern incinerators involve not only high capital outlays initially, but also high fuel costs and high labor costs as well. In addition, incinerators produce ash and soot which create their own handling and disposal problems.
It is common procedure to operate an incinerator only when solid waste has accumulated sufficiently to warrant operation, especially in light of the high rate of fuel consumption of most incinerators. Thus, it is necessary to store temporarily the solid wastes and infectious, bio-hazardous wastes which are to be incinerated. Storage of the bio-hazardous wastes further increases the possibility of malfactors escaping therefrom, due to the extra handling steps which are necessitated by temporary storage.
Faced with these growing problems deriving from incineration of bio-hazardous and solid wastes, many medical institutions are looking for cheaper, safer, and more practical methods of solid waste management and disposal.